What follows is a mish-mash of some of our favorite posts, our top-choice burger joints, books we like and think you should read, and other fun beef-and-bun miscellanea.
I love this piece, "McForest," by Berlin-based artist Sarah Illenberger. Her site doesn't elaborate on the thought process behind it, but perhaps it's a comment on deforestation in the name of cattle-ranching? The piece appears to have been an entry in the book Sideways: A Smart Art Project, released as part of a Mercedes-Benz SmartCar promotion. [Tip o' the hat to "Hamburger Matty" via Happy Mundane]
Man does not live by burger alone. Were that the case, we'd all blindly consume the stale-bunned, hockey pucks at the nearest McKing. True burger fans hunger for a deeper understanding of their favorite food, and, luckily, two books that lavish obsessive attention on this dish are hitting bookstores in April.
The end of the month will mark the publication of Josh Ozersky's The Hamburger: A History (April 22) and George Motz's Hamburger America (April 8; though it's already in some stores).
And while two burger books in one month might seem a bit much, they're two very different and complementary works.
I'm going to kill two birds with one stone with this post. First bird: I've been meaning to give a shout-out to the awesome blog Portland Hamburgers for a while now and don't know what's stopped me. It's a cool addition (though it's now been around since August 2007) to the burger-blogging scene. Sorry for sleepin' on the shout-out, PDX Burgers!
Photograph from Vintage Roadside
Second: Check out this cool photo that Portland Hamburgers dug up of a "family" of burger mascot people that happens to be sitting in the back yard of the folks who run Vintage Roadside—a Portland business that sells the ephemera of bygone roadside America. What an amazing collection to have! Could you imagine the total and ultimate cred this array would lend you while hosting grill-outs? Here's a link to a full set of "family" photos.
Yesterday I showed you a series of photos, taken by my friend Listmaker, of my friend Marc as Marc had his first couple bites of the exotic Krispy Kreme Bacon Cheeseburger at an independent league baseball game last year. At the time the photos were taken, I told him, "Marc: I want a write-up of your experience for AHT. Stat!" Well, it only took seven months, but I guess yesterday's post was all the kick in the pants he needed.
Today, he responds: "You've gone and posted my mug all over your hamburger website. That means I finally looked over the draft of the Grizzlie Burger review. I fixed it up a bit. Sorry I didn't send this to you last summer!"
No problem, Marc. The important thing is that we have your story now, to warm our hearts on a cold winter day. Burgermeisters, dig in!
Also, Listmaker wanted to draw attention to the fact that there's more KK Bacon Cheeseburger action here, if you're interested.—The Mgmt.
In March of last year, A Hamburger Today referenced a press release from the Gateway Grizzlies, an independent league baseball team from Sauget, Illinois. The team had created the Grizzlie Burger (known elsewhere as the Luther Burger). I couldn't help but refer to it as "that Krispy Kreme burger." It's a bacon cheeseburger served on a glazed Krispy Kreme doughnut instead of a traditional bun.
Later, in summer of last year, a friend and I took a baseball road trip through the Midwest. When I realized the Gateway Grizzlies played a few miles southeast of the Saint Louis Cardinals, one of the teams we'd included on our trek, I insisted that GCS Ballpark be included on the itinerary. It soon became the one destination that couldn't be altered. On the evening of Sunday, July 2, 2006, Listmaker and I walked into the Grizzlies' stadium at the start of the second inning—thankfully not too late to try the burger I hadn't stopped talking about during the previous month. [He really was talking about this burger a lot at the time.—Ed.]
I'd visited my parents.
Me: A friend and I are going on a baseball trip to major, minor, and independent league games, and we're going to...
Mom (interrupting): "Are you going to try that hamburger I saw on the news? The one with the Krispy Kreme bun?"
Me: "Of course! You heard about that? Wow!"
I'd asked for time off at work.
Me: I'm going to try a bacon cheeseburger with a sliced-open Krispy Kreme doughnut serving as the bun.
Co-worker (visibly disturbed at the thought): Eww, gross. Wait: You don't eat cheeseburgers.
Me: I know. I might make an exception. Or, maybe they'll serve it without cheese. I hope they serve it without cheese. [Marc likes cheese, and he likes burgers. He doesn't like cheese on his burgers, however. Go figure. —Ed.]
Basically, I had mentioned this burger to everyone I knew. It's a food item you can't resist talking about. How is it prepared? What does it taste like? Beef and sugar? Together? Is that sane? Is that possible?
Today (November 3) is the last day to order customized ketchup bottles from MyHeinz.com and still get them by Christmas.
The burger lovers on your list don't take theirs with ketchup? Hey, they'll still need the five-seven for fries.
14-ounce glass classic bottle, $6 each. [MyHeinz.com]
Simply amazing ...
Gotta have your tool, yo!
Wendy's Training Video Rap [youtube.com]
As you know, A Hamburger Today rarely deviates from its burger content. Despite daily temptations to blog about other worthy topics, we remain relentlessly on-message here. So I'm glad to have this excuse to tell you about one of my favorite podcasts.
It's called Escape Pod, and, as you can tell from just a brief glance at its logo, it's a science-fiction podcast. Escape Pod is produced by Steve Eley, who puts together weekly doses of engaging and imaginative short stories, ultrashort stories, and reviews that you can listen to on your computer or MP3 player at your leisure. I discovered it on Boing Boing a few weeks ago and have been rocketing through its archives, nearly exhausting all the available audio to date. Mr. Eley is an astute and professional editor, and the stories he buys for the show—all authors are paid for their contributions—rarely fail to entertain me. And, unlike many podcasts, the audio quality is, with a few exceptions, high. (The episodes' audio quality is subject to, and varies with, the recording equipment used by various guest readers.)
I finally had a chance to listen to Escape Pod Episode 2, a reading of a story called "Feng Burger," by author John Aegard. What follows is an excerpt of the story from the Escape Pod site, but it doesn't begin to hint at the surprise ending. I already know you're a burger fan, but if you're also a science-fiction fan, you would do well to download the story and give it a listen.
The Chinese are particular about their designs, and for good reason. A design with good feng shui—one that satisfies the universe’s sense of metaphor—attracts chi, the energy that raises mountains and pushes rivers and draws good fortune near and keeps tax collectors far away. Whether by accident or design, no one can say, but the Burger Pods have potent feng shui. Where normal men would see nothing but gleaming stainless-steel cabinets and a charbroiling grill, a feng shui practitioner would see arms and hands, cradling the Burger Pod’s occupant and bathing her in chi.
Escape Pod rates this particular story PG—for "sexual innuendo, mild profanity, and food service employees slacking off." (Did I mention Mr. Eley has a good sense of humor, too?)
Feng Burger [escapepod.org]
Subscribe to Escape Pod [escapepod.org]
Bargar Toys, blogged to AHT from the Flickr photostream of corkyswitzer
UPDATE: I looked closely at the tag in the photo, which says "The Burger Bunch." A bit of google magic reveals they're hand-made by Friends With You. The character is called Mr. TTT Burger, and the product page at STRANGEco shows that he splits up into individual patty-and-bun pieces. Cost: $22.
Yesterday, we used a photograph of a farmer eating a burger at a cornhusking contest in Marshall County, Iowa, to illustrate an entry here. It's from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. Below, we offer a look at other noteworthy burger photos we dug up from the available online collection.
Most of the photos here were taken by Russell Lee (right; 1903–1986), who was invited to join the federally funded Farm Security Administration as part of a team of photographers charged with documenting the plight of the rural poor during the Depression. (Esther Bubley, Jack Delano, and Arthur Rothstein, whose photos are also represented below, were members of the project as well.)
These photos are truly a fascinating scrapbook of hamburger—and American—history, and they're available for reproduction online at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Reading Room (search the catalog for "hamburger"). Dig in!
Here's a killer list we've mentioned on AHT but have never elaborated on. It's Alan Richman's top 20 from his July 2005 story "The 20 Hamburgers You Must Eat Before You Die" in GQ. Do click through to read the entire piece; it quickly made its way onto the Required Reading list at AHT HQ. Bon appétit! ...
Hey hey, burger buddies! I've got a question for you: Have you read Hamburgers & Fries yet?
You haven't?
Well then, put down that double-double, wipe the grease from your hands, and point your mouse to the link above. It'll take you to Amazon, where you can order this tasty read, the third book in a series exploring iconic American food items (the first two were Fried Chicken
Near his home in the South, for instance, Mr. Edge hits upon "slug burgers." Born of WWI rationing and the Depression, their patties feature soy-based extenders. In Oklahoma, he peels into the history of onion burgers, whose cooks smash onion rounds into the ground beef as it sizzles—again, another hardscrabble way of making the meat go further. Other regionalisms are easily understood, like the green-chile burgers of New Mexico or the bean burgers of San Antonio, Texas, that feature a slathering of refried beans and Fritos (which were, I learned, invented there).
Perhaps the most delicious-sounding burger to me, however, was the Jucy Lucy, found at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis. Essentially a slice of American cheese encased by two patties, Mr. Edge describes it thus: "... You will, upon first bite, taste a cheeseburger that does not follow the accepted protocols, but takes its cues from the choicer contents of a Whitman's Sampler box—say, a caramel-gorged fez of dark chocolate."
It's concise yet descriptive writing like that (the book is full of well-turned prose) that makes me want to hop the next plane to Minnesota and try a Jucy Lucy. But, thanks to the recipes included, I can grill up a knock-off at home—and will be doing so quite soon, I can assure you.
As I mentioned, Mr. Edge's writing is well-crafted, and it's fun. His book manages to give a deceptively thorough overview of the state of American hamburgery in a short, quick package that you can easily devour in the course of an evening.
HAMBURGERS & FRIES: AN AMERICAN STORY
Author: John T. Edge
Publisher: Putnam, 2005
Pages: 208 (hardcover)
Click here to buy it from Amazon
Photograph of John T. Edge by Kyle Hood
Tiny hamburgers are just be too big to be confined to one week's worth of special coverage. This entry begins our second week of Tiny Hamburger Week on A Hamburger Today. — Ed.
Much more meaty than a White Castle burger could ever hope to be, Selling 'Em by the Sack
Shortly after mentioning this book last week, A Hamburger Today received a copy for review in the mail. We devoured it almost as quickly as a sack of Whitey's. While a tad more academic than entertaining, David Gerard Hogan's book is nonetheless fascinating and worth picking up for anyone interested in hamburger history. It is a must-read for White Castle fanatics.
Selling 'Em by the Sack details the rise of the hamburger as the defining "ethnic cuisine" of the American people in the 1920s. Before the Castle's rise, the burger was viewed as an icky, inferior food made from all the parts of a cow no one would eat. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle
We learned some surprising facts about The White Castle System of Eating Houses, as the chain was officially called. Walt Anderson (at left in photo at left), for example, was an avid pilot who bought a fleet of biplanes to make impromptu quality checks at the far-flung garrisons of his empire. Mr. Ingram invented paper napkins and the paper hat that has long been associated with burger-joint employees. He then founded the Paperlynen Company as a subsidiary of the Castle; it supplied the chain with napkins, hats, and paper aprons and also made a tidy profit selling the same items to other foodmakers.
The book goes on to recount the Castle's near undoing during and after World War II (a labor shortage and changing wartime consumption habits cause the chain to falter) and then its resurrection thanks to a singleminded return to the founding principles of quality, cleanliness, and value.
I could go on and on about what a fascinating story this is, but I'm starting to bore myself here. If you're "one of us," that is, a Castle fan, put this book in your sack.
Thanks for all the response we've been getting today. So many people have linked to us on our debut day and so many smart, critical burger fans have seen the site that we really will have our work cut out for us—and will be under close scrutiny.
One site I wanted to highlight before going live was The Burger Club. This crazy in-depth bulletin-board site started as the Burger Club thread on eGullet, where we often liked to lurk to pick up juicy pointers. We lost track of the thread while obsessing about pizza but were pleased to pick it up again thanks to eGullet's Jason Perlow.
It is a must-visit for burger fans.
When AHT editor & publisher Adam K. ran into filmmaker George Motz, oh he of Hamburger America fame, Mr. Motz tipped us to a relatively new site by the name of the Burger Club.
The Burger Club is a bulletin board forum dedicated to, you guessed it, hamburgers. So far, most of the topics on the site are New York–centric, but we're sure that as more folks become aware of it and join, that will change.
So take a gander at the site join the club of hamburger aficionados, if you please.
I first heard about burger biopic Hamburger America in a January 26 story in the New York Times. I promptly filed the info away in my mind and hard drive for what was then a castle-in-the-air burger blog—and then promptly forgot about it.
It wasn't until reading this story that my memory was jogged and I was prompted to order the DVD for review.
Hamburger America is delicious. Brooklyn filmmaker George Motz has captured eight unique family-run burger joints in this sweet little 54-minute paean to the patty. From Connecticut to Chicago to Santa Fe, we meet some of the most unpretentious yet serious burger artisans this country has to offer.
There's Ted's Restaurant in Meriden, Connecticut, where the burgers are steamed, thereby cutting the fat while retaining juiciness. Head out west a bit for a 180 on the fat philosophy at Solly's Grille. There, just outside Milwaukee, the specialty is the "butter burger," whose top bun is slathered with an insane amount of the namesake dairy product before gracing the patty. The butter then melts and oozes down the sides of the burger and onto the plate. (Yes, that's a butter burger on the DVD cover above.)
Perhaps the most endearing burgermeister in the film is Joe Maranto, owner of the Meers Store in Meers, Oklahoma. Mr. Maranto raises his own grass-fed Texas longhorn cattle for the restaurant's beef. It's actually quite touching to watch Mr. Maranto talk to one of his cattle, stroke it under its muzzle, and make kissing sounds to it while telling the camera that the animal is "the future of the Meers Store." With his respect for the animals he'll soon be feeding customers and his connection to the land and knowledge of its history, there's no doubting that the Meers Store turns out some lovingly crafted burgers.
You'll also meet the Sianis family, owners of the Billy Goat Tavern, the Chicago eatery made nationally famous as the inspiration for the well-known John Belushi "cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger" skit on Saturday Night Live. (And yes, it's the same family that also spawned the Curse of the Billy Goat.)
Other hamburger joints featured are: The Wheel Inn (Sedalia, Missouri), Dyer's (Memphis), Louis' Lunch (New Haven, Connecticut), and the Bobcat Bite (Santa Fe).
HAMBURGER AMERICA
Website: hamburgeramerica.com
Cost: $16 + $2 S/H via Mr. Motz's site or $19.99 + S/H via Amazon. (We recommend buying it via Motz's site; as he probably gets a bigger cut of the money that way.)
[Photo of Texas longhorn from hamburgeramerica.com.]
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